Prisoners Of Circumstance Poem by R E Mason

Prisoner to one’s own kin.
Milky pallor in shadowed chamber,
Radiant solar beauty never to kiss child soft skin.
Dreaming of ruddy skinned harvesters,
Not of their labour, envious,
But of the freedom to invest,
In halcyon summer days.

Prisoner to one’s own paucity.
In brawny, course hands, sickle deftly wielded,
Dripping from calloused head to the mud of the field
Screaming limbs and a shire-horse back.
Dreaming of cool shaded quietude,
Of their time and coin, covetous,
To be free of the heat on this summer day.